The Home Bakers #14: Chocolate Streusel-Ribboned Cupcakes

It’s time for The Home Bakers again! Gosh, time really flies, it just seemed to me that the previous Home Bakers was only days away! I am gonna keep this post really short and sweet – the host this time is Louanne from Louanne’s Kitchen, and she had picked a very lovely butter cake recipe with a very delicious chocolate-cinnamon streusel.

Here are the modifications I’ve made for the recipe:

• Reduced the batter by 25% – because I could only find 200 ml of yogurt instead of the required 250 ml
• Doubled the streusel amount – followed the advice of other fellow Home Bakers,
• Reduced the sugar in both the streusel and the cake – I still found the streusel a tad too sweet, but as the cake wasn’t, the overall sweetness was still alright
• Substituted the pecans/walnuts for almond slices – almond’s the only nut I have (laziness is really kicking in these days!)
• Substituted the sour cream for yogurt – just because yogurt is cheaper and more readily available than sour cream
• Baked as cupcakes – I don’t have a bundt pan, so I decided to bake them in squarish cupcake holders that I got a while back. They’re a little bigger than the standard cupcake size, so I got about 10 cupcakes. I reckon the original recipe can yield 12 standard size cupcakes.

The overall cupcake was a soft, moist and chocolatey delight. It wasn’t very crumbly, which was a plus point as well. The downside is that I felt that the top didn’t brown as well as other Home Bakers – maybe because of the over-loaded amount of streusel on top? And I really should have put more streusel in the middle – I was worried I won’t have enough on top (despite already doubling the streusel) so I held back on the streusel filling. Overall, I think this is a pretty good cake recipe that I won’t mind trying it again.

On to the step-by-step photos! (See, short and sweet right?)

Step-by-step Photos
1) Combine flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, cinnamon and cold butter together.	2) Cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture is "sandy".
3) Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.	4) And now it's time to beat some butter and sugar!
5) Once the butter and sugar is light and fluffy, add in 1 egg and beat it in.	6) Add in the second egg and the egg yolk.
7) Add in some vanilla extract / paste	8) Sift in 1/3 of the flour and fold it in.
9) Beat in the 1/2 of the yogurt little by little (see notes).	10) Sift in 1/2 of the remaining flour and fold it in.
11) Beat in the rest of the yogurt.	12) Fold in the rest of the flour.
13) Fill the cupcake holder 1/2-full with the batter. Add in streusel and some chocolate chips.	14) Top with more batter, streusel and finally the nuts. Bake away!

Cool and serve!

I’m submitting this recipe to The Home Bakers #14 – if you’re interested to join us, do head over here to check it out!

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Chocolate Streusel-Ribboned Cake

Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 25 mins

Serves: 12 standard cupcakes

adapted from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas

Streusel
55 grams cold, unsalted butter, chopped into small bits (1/4 cup; 1/2 stick)
50 grams all-purpose flour (6 tablespoons)
100 grams brown sugar (1/2 cup)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 tablespoons cocoa powder

Batter
85 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature (3/8 cup; 3/4 stick)
75 grams caster sugar (3/8 cup)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 egg yolk (would omit this in the future)
1 teaspoon vanilla
185 grams all-purpose flour (1 1/2 cups)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon table salt
200 ml plain yogurt (4/5 cup)

Optional
45 grams semi-sweet chocolate chips (1/4 cup)
40 grams almond flakes (1/4 cup)

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Line 12 cupcake holders.

Mix the streusel and cake batter separately – for the full instructions, please visit Louanne’s (Louanne’s Kitchen) blog.

Scoop 1/2 the batter and divide it among the cupcake holders. Scoop 1/2 the streusel and divide it among the cupcake holders. Divide the chocolate chips among the cupcakes.

Mix the almond flakes in the remaining streusel.

Divide the rest of the batter and streusel among the cupcakes.

Bake the cupcakes for 20 to 25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

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Happy baking!